Tara Tedrow is a shareholder in Land Use, Zoning & Environmental Group and serves as chair of the Cannabis and Controlled Substances Group at Lowndes Law. She brings years of experience handling an array of complex legal matters for multi-billion dollar valued companies and entrepreneurs alike. With a significant portion of her practice devoted to land use and development, Tara regularly advises clients on entitling projects for commercial, residential, industrial, office and mixed uses. She works with local governments statewide and regulatory agencies to address the needs of her clients related to environmental permitting and compliance, zoning, comprehensive plans, concurrency, site plan approval, variance and waiver requests, due diligence and property rights. Tara has handled complex land use matters across the state of Florida and in other states, including California. Often sought out for high-profile and high-stakes land development projects, Tara has delivered positive outcomes for clients ranging from large multi-national and U.S.-based companies to high-net worth individuals seeking land use entitlements. With over 15 years of competitive debate experience and as a nationally ranked competitive debater, she is uniquely suited to handle complex and controversial projects and public hearings that present a myriad of political and legal challenges. Tara is the only person in the state of Florida to be appointed by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to both the inaugural Industrial Hemp Advisory Council created under Senate Bill 1020 and to the state’s Hemp Advisory Committee, which she currently chairs. A prolific presenter and speaker at industry seminars and conferences, she has served as the keynote speaker on regulated industry regulations. Since the fall of 2018, Tara has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where she continues to teach the only Marijuana Law & Policy course. Tara Tedrow is a contributing writer at the Orlando Sentinel, where she was named one of Central Florida’s 100 most influential people, and has been featured on national news networks for her real estate industry expertise. In addition to being an award winning lawyer, Tara is a multi-time gubernatorial appointee to positions in Florida, is the former chair of the Ninth Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission, former Vice-Chair of the Economic Development Advisory Board for the City of Winter Park, chair of the Center for Leadership Development at the Rollins Crummer Graduate School of Business, Leadership Center Business Advisory Board. Tara is also the founder and director of a non-profit organization, the Florida Debate Initiative, where she has successfully worked to obtain a $5,000,000 grant for the Florida Department of Education (the largest in history for a state speech and debate organization) to provide competitive speech and debate opportunities to students across Florida.